Does Mac OS X offer Dpi Scaling?

macrumors newbie

Hi I was wondering if someone can help me with a question. I am seriously considering purcashing my first mac (really like the air) and was wondering if it offers something simlliar to Windows 7 as far as DPI scaling. I like things just a little bigger and the newer resolutions have everything so small. Windows 7 handles this great if I increase it to 120 dpi and most programs seem to work nicely with it. Does the Mac offer something similiar? I have searched everywhere and it seems the only info I can find has to do with Mac Retina displays scaling options which do not answer my questions.

thread startermacrumors newbie

That sort of scaling is really only available on the new retina model. You can set an Air to a non-native resolution but it will probably look pretty blurry.

The 13" Macbook Pro does have a lower resolution than the 13" Air (1280x800 vs 1440x900) so that might work a bit better for you.

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Thanks for the reply. The non native resolution would be blurry and would not appeal to me at all. I like the idea of the Macbook Air vs the pro because its just so light and portable.. I guess I'll have to try it in the store soon to really see if I can live with it I do wonder if there are some other options that are Third party to help.. I am basically concerned about the email sizing (I use thunderbird for work and cannot switch) and would think that Safari has a bigger scaling option kind of simliar to Chrome or IE (zoom). Anything else I can live with the smaller size most likely.

macrumors 65816

I'm a bit older and have been using the Air's for several years. Most app (browsers, Office, email clients) have hotkeys to increase the font size on the fly - generally Command-+ and Command-- will increase and decrease the font size on the fly.

macrumors 68040

Thanks for the reply. The non native resolution would be blurry and would not appeal to me at all. I like the idea of the Macbook Air vs the pro because its just so light and portable.. I guess I'll have to try it in the store soon to really see if I can live with it I do wonder if there are some other options that are Third party to help.. I am basically concerned about the email sizing (I use thunderbird for work and cannot switch) and would think that Safari has a bigger scaling option kind of simliar to Chrome or IE (zoom). Anything else I can live with the smaller size most likely.

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You can definitely zoom in in Safari. Chrome works pretty well on OSX also if you prefer the way it does zooming. Thunderbird should let you set larger font sizes as well.

macrumors regular

The rMBP seem to use super sampling when scaling to a non-native lower resolution. It looks pretty good but is a resource-ineffective fix on the rather big problem that they do not really offer a real scalable user interface.

macrumors 6502

Actually, with HiDPI mode, you can make things look bigger at native resolution. I enable HiDPI via Xcode (Quartz debug) on my 22" external monitor and everything was crisp (native resolution) but all the UI elements were larger. HiDPI mode is available currently in the rMBP, but you can enable it though Quartz Debug for other machines.

thread startermacrumors newbie

Actually, with HiDPI mode, you can make things look bigger at native resolution. I enable HiDPI via Xcode (Quartz debug) on my 22" external monitor and everything was crisp (native resolution) but all the UI elements were larger. HiDPI mode is available currently in the rMBP, but you can enable it though Quartz Debug for other machines.

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Is there a certain % you can set or is it one size fits all? My concern is that the HIDPI through Xcode would be 2x everything... which might not be what i wanted. I am looking for something similiar to how windows handles the scaling. If it works like the Retina one does (my step son has one) then it would be perfect because it has multiple options..

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